Remill Management

B

Brian442

Member
Full Member
Messages
7
Reaction score
1
How do you keep track of remills? We use Sum3D as our CAM software for two DWX-50s & a 450i, and we would like to be able to produce a daily report of everything that was milled but I'm not sure of any foolproof way to do it. Right now, if a crown breaks or is milled on the wrong shade or anything needs to be remilled for any reason, we just send it over to the CAM team and get another one made with no record. I'm afraid that if we asked them to simply record remills in a spreadsheet, we wouldn't get an accurate accounting of mistakes made in that department. Anyone have a good system in place?
 
F

FullPartial

Active Member
Full Member
Messages
106
Reaction score
16
I'm in a similar position, we had faced mismills and remakes with little accountability. We started printing off every mill job from our cam software. Be it a single unit or multiple units every single one gets printed. This allows whoever cuts them out to easily identify what crown was milled and on what disc. They match that to the Rx and ensure it's reflected. If not, we mark an X through the crown and those papers are retained for three weeks. Then it's a matter of finding a way aggregate the data into a spreadsheet or google doc. Hope that helps.
 
F

FullPartial

Active Member
Full Member
Messages
106
Reaction score
16
Between you and me, I just hide the mismills under the procera scanner, but management gets that protocol. Plenty of room! ;)
 
Last edited:
JMN

JMN

Christian Member
Full Member
Messages
12,205
Reaction score
1,884
I guess the first question of how to track this would be what kind of metrics are you seeking to measure so you get the desired data points.

When doing pfm and full cast, if there were an issue requiring recasting, it would be noted on the back of the script. It was not a big lab, but every tech, save the model tech who handled every model and would always do so, would note their involvement at what stage with what material, and weight if metal tech.

The original(s)/failure(s) (some days you just can't win) would be left in the pan in a c&b box with a 'X' on it until the case was packed for shipping or delivery.

For a larger lab where everuthing is not known between the handfull that needed to know, would having the lower paid shipping/packing person at that time acquire the chartable data you seek? Just give the shipping/packing person a blank sheet with columns for tech(s),invoice #, dr, date, tooth#'s, and checkboxes for wrong shade, wrong material, chipped, etc and an 'other' for any non-standard event. The packer doesn't need to knoweverything, but just be able to read the techs notes on the back of the script if you're still paper based. Turn in the sheet at the end of the day with the mismills. Even if it's blank. Proof of nothing is still data.

I know nothing of the fancy case management software, so excuse my ignorance if this is infeasible. Does it not track cases through from entry to completion and wouldn't it have a 'sent back to level-x' function for qc notations if nothing else? Could it generate reports of how many 'sent back to level-milling' events occured during a specifiable time window?

Am I talking through my hat so completely in a milling house with useless old schoool ideas?
 
Last edited:
JMN

JMN

Christian Member
Full Member
Messages
12,205
Reaction score
1,884
I may be naive about this, but (okay forget the 'may') if you can't trust your staff to be honest about their mistakes, maybe there are other issues that need to be fixed too.
 
B

Brian442

Member
Full Member
Messages
7
Reaction score
1
We're looking to uncover the cause of our remills to (hopefully) reduce the waste. Many of the remills are unavoidable, be in machine error or something similar, but there's also a number of remills from error by a CAM tech or in finishing. I do trust the current staff, but we are expanding and it's good to have quantifiable numbers for the new staff members we plan to add.

We've played around with printing reports for every individual CAM file but it still comes down to trusting the CAM tech to print (and keep) reports for every CAM file.

I just heard about CAPZilla today and that might be what I'm looking for. It flags every time the same stl is imported into the CAM software for a remill and prompts the tech to give a reason. Think we might give it a shot.
 
SmartLabJon

SmartLabJon

Member
Full Member
Messages
36
Reaction score
13
We've had a lot of remills creep up here recently. No one would track them so no one was the wiser. Then all of sudden your cost for consumables goes up but your billable output does not. I just ended up tracking them myself by hand. Then when I had a department meeting with the CAD/CAM department and showed them on paper, the remills dropped dramatically. Imagine that! Some employees don't realize the cost and say "ah just remill it, no big deal". The time and material adds up every time. I also personally do a quick QC in the morning of everything that is sintered overnight. It's amazing what I catch sometimes, but at least it's caught then and not a day or two later when it is being fit or stained. I trust our people too (you can't micromanage everyone!) but just the fact that they know you are watching does a whole lot of good.

In regards to the cause of remills (in my case however),I would say that a machine "error" was the cause less than 1% of the time, the other 99% is human error. Examples would be incorrect insertion directions, wrong margins, not enforcing the correct thickness, not milling out the right material (not following the rx) or milling something 4 axis that should have been 5 axis.
 
F

FullPartial

Active Member
Full Member
Messages
106
Reaction score
16
I do trust the current staff, but we are expanding and it's good to have quantifiable numbers for the new staff members we plan to add.

We've played around with printing reports for every individual CAM file but it still comes down to trusting the CAM tech to print (and keep) reports for every CAM file.

I just heard about CAPZilla today and that might be what I'm looking for. It flags every time the same stl is imported into the CAM software for a remill and prompts the tech to give a reason. Think we might give it a shot.

I'll have to look into the CAPZilla, not familiar but it sounds like it could be a solution to your situation. One of our porcelain employees is responsible for retaining the paperwork for the crowns, they cut out the crowns and stain them. They get the first look at what has been milled and if it's acceptable etc. On the issue of trust, maybe that's a more overlooked issue in the hiring process than is given credit I don't know. But integrity is huge in every position. If I had a coworker who thought we could pretend mis-milled crowns didn't occur and not be willing to keep track when no one is keeping track of them, that is something most software couldn't prevent in my eyes. I could come up with several excuses to insert into a prompt that asked why something is being re-milled. I don't and don't have coworker that do that because of the integrity we all have and look to our peers to have. We distribute the responsibility of making sure crowns are being tracked for issues not because we can't trust a coworker but because we are not infallible, mistakes will happen and we are improving that accountability system every week. I might be way off the mark but there it be!
 
Top Bottom